Live signal: S. Korea launches "Naro" satellite rocket

South Korea launches its Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, also known as Naro-1, from a space center on the country’s southeastern coast. It’s the country’s third attempt to launch a rocket into space.

When Naro-1 takes off from its launch pad, it is visible to the naked eye for about a minute, and then takes only 9 minutes to reach its target altitude and deploy its satellite. After breaking the speed of sound in the first 55 seconds of flight, the Naro-1 reaches the upper atmosphere, release a clamshell-like aerodynamic nose shroud, and separate from its Russian first stage in the first four minutes of the mission. It will take one hour to confirm whether the Naro-1 has entered orbit. If all goes well, the satellite will transmit its first beacon signal approximately two hours and 20 minutes after the launch. It will make its first contact with the country’s ground station located at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology about 13 hours after the launch.

South Korea launches its Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, also known as Naro-1, from a spacecenter on the country’s southeastern coast.It’s the country’s third attempt to launch a rocket into space.

Naro-1 is a two-stage space launch vehicle that stands 33-point-5 meters tall. It has a maximum diameter of 2-point-9 meters and weighs 140 tons when fully loaded. Without fuel, the rocket weighs 10 tons, with the outer walls being 2 millimeters thick. Two earlier attempts in 2009 and 2010 to send the Naro into space ended in failure. The third launch was postponed from October 26th to November 29th 2012 due to a damaged rubber seal in a connector between the rocket’s first-stage and the launch pad. However, the November countdown was called off just 16 minutes before liftoff.

All three first-stage rockets of Naro-1 are built by Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. A separate space program is already underway to develop an indigenous 10-ton thrust engine by 2016. Wednesday’s Naro-1 launch is the last chance for the joint Russian-Korean program to succeed. South Korea’s partnership with Russia ends after this launch. South Korea plans to set up its own independent space program with a fully homemade rocket ready for launch around 2021.